You wrote, "Are you aware that trans fat is created by "whipping" fat in vats? "

Nope...wasn't aware of that. And it makes no sense to me. Could you please direct me somewhere that discusses how this can happen? So far, as my understanding goes, heat is require to "create" trans fats. Even if you are "whipping" at a really high speed, I cannot imagine it would generate the kind of heat needed to create a trans fat.

I watched an episode of Unwrapped on the food channel, where the peanut factory said they hydrogenated their oil by whipping it in large batches so that it wouldn't be liquid at room temperature.

But doing some research, I've found this:

`Hydrogenation changes the unsaturated and essential fatty acids present in a natural oil. In this process, oils are reacted under pressure with hydrogen gas at high temperature (120 to 210 C; [248 to 410 F) in the presence of a metal catalyst (usually nickel [a confirmed carcinogen], but sometimes platinum or even copper) for 6 to 8 hours.'

So, apparently, either the peanut people were wrong about what they were doing, or there are other ways of doing it. So, I'm not sure. But they called it "hydrogenation" and I played it back on my Tivo at the time because I was surprised by that. There wasn't any heat involved in their process, and they said it introduced more oxygen/hydrogen into the food.

The above makes sense.
YOu have both temperature and pressure working together to force the hydrogenation. It is not the whipping at all (that just keeps it moving). So if anyone takes their peanut butter and whips it around and puts it back in, there's no hydrogenation going on (unless they are doing it under high temperature or higher temperature and pressure). I do believe the catalyst is key to the process as well.

The peanut people were probably not wrong...they just didn't want to give their "complete process" away as it might be a brand-unique process. That's how they often do it on "Unwrapped" - especially for companies that have a secret formula or a secret process.

NanAng, when I first read your other post I had one of those "What the????" moments, but to your credit you did inspire me to go online and do a little perusing myself. My quote about hydrogenation (which is similar to yours) is



Therefore, I'm confident that taking my mixing and making my natural PB fluffier with air is not creating something unhealthy for me! *phew*

Ipioch makes a great point about the Unwrapped espisode...it could be a proprietary technique they have, plus they have to oversimplify everything for the show anyhow...and then to add to that, I figure since hydrogenation has such a bad name that they don't want to spend too much time talking about anyhow!

I think I'm going to go get some peanut butter now.